this post was submitted on 19 May 2026
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me_irl
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I believe that really depends on where you live. Also did you mean net or gross?
Some napkin math I did now, if your gross is 100k....
After tax 75k
Edit: I fucked up and did 4500 for housing not 2500. Cheaper housing gives a lot more room!
~~That leaves you with like $860/mo for fun or any other thing.~~
Of course that's a lot of assumptions that can change it. But I'd say 200k gross is the start of "don't have to think too hard about money"
4500 a month for housing is insane, is rent actually that bad in the US? I could rent a villa for that.
You are also missing private retirement funds though (and if car dependent 100/month seems very low for transit costs)
that's a cheap mortgage where i live. it would pay for a 100 year old falling apart shack.
the average mortgage here is like 6K a month now.
the average studio in my city rents for 3.2K a month... you want a 2bed? that will be over 4K
it costs that much because people are willing to pay it and they have the money to pay it. it's that simple.
USA has lots and lots of very rich people, who are willing to pay lots of money for these things.
$4500 was in my head because that was the projected mortgage+taxes+fees for a 2BR apartment in brooklyn I saw the other day.
There are some apartments in NYC that are that expensive to rent. Average here is $3,650, but that's skewed by a lot of stupid expensive places. Median is a little lower.
Other parts of the country can be much cheaper, but sometimes you get what you pay for.
Good call.
That's a good point. I rely on mass transit, which is much cheaper.